"Flee, you fool! We're running from a devil out of h.e.l.l!"

Ath responded with a swift, overhand cut aimed at splitting the barbarian's skull. Oman's shorter blade licked out to deflect it with an echoing clang.

"I'll take this dog," he bellowed to Heng Shih. "Cut the girl free!"

The Cimmerian presented a picture of starkly primordial savagery. His huge body was entirely spattered with drying blood. A sluggish stream of it split his face like a smear of some macabre war paint. His mail shirt was tarnished and torn, hanging upon his mighty torso in tatters.

Glacial blue eyes blazed volcanically through the crimson streaking his snarling visage, fastening upon the mercenary captain with chilling intent.

As Ath stared at his opponent in growing trepidation, the barbarian lashed out. The silvery sword darted for the Stygian's eyes. With a speed that belied his rangy form, Ath brought his weapon up and caught Conan's sword between the blade and quillion. With a practiced twist, Ethram-Fal's captain snapped the barbarian's sword off three inches above the hilt. The blade of the broken weapon sailed above the heads of the combatants, falling to strike the stone floor and rebound with a jingle. Ath skipped back to slash at his nigh-weaponless opponent, but the Cimmerian lunged forward to embrace him. Their bodies slammed together with a clash of mail. Ath's breath, sickly sweet with kaokao, hissed into Conan's face. They grappled. The Stygian could not bring his weapon to bear at such close quarters. The barbarian twisted his sword arm free, dragged the stump of his broken weapon up inside Ath's guard, and buried it in his throat. Then Conan shoved the Stygian away from him with all his strength. The stricken captain reeled away, falling on his back with a crash. His broadsword rattled across the floor and was intercepted by Conan, who took two quick steps, bent, and caught it neatly by the hilt. He s.n.a.t.c.hed the blade up and turned toward the statue, leaving Ath dying on the stone behind him.

Heng Shih's flare-bladed scimitar had cut the bonds pinning Neesa to the black altar and she now stood beside it. The scribe rubbed at her thigh where Zelandra's knee had struck her. Zelandra herself was locked in an embrace with the brawny Khitan, her slender form almost engulfed in his powerful arms.

A distant series of horrified screams came echoing down the hallway.

They were choked off almost at once, replaced by an indescribable rasping sound.

"Crom! It follows us! Run if you value your lives!"

"You are going nowhere!"

All heads turned to the doorway that had admitted Conan and Heng Shih.

There, Ethram-Fal had struggled to his feet and stood unsteadily, bracing himself against the portal's arch with one hand. The other hand wiped at the unnaturally dark blood streaming from his forehead, then extended, dripping, to point accusingly at the little group.

"Your luck is remarkable, Zelandra. But it will require more than the selfless efforts of your slaves to save you from my wrath. Nothing has changed. I shall-"

With the instinctive reflexes of the true barbarian, Conan chose that moment to charge his foe. The savage, ululating war cry of a Cimmerian tribesman smote the ears of those in the chamber. It froze the blood.

Ethram-Fal lifted his encrimsoned hand toward Conan and, with a gesture, halted him in his tracks. A guttural grunt was torn from the barbarian's lips as the Hand of Yimsha clenched its sorcerous fist.

"All of your paltry physical strength is as nothing," spat the Stygian.

"I shall crush you like the useless insect that you are." His hand curled into a tighter fist and the Cimmerian jerked like a man stretched rigid on the rack.

"Watch closely, Zelandra! This fate awaits you, too!" The fist began to close.

Conan felt himself in the coils of some vast and invisible python.

Sheets of agony rippled over his straining torso and his skull throbbed, filling his vision with billowing clouds of black and scarlet. His lungs heaved, starving for air and unable to expand. Sweat rolled down his contorted face to drip from his chin. Very slowly, he lifted Ath's broadsword higher and took a faltering step forward.

"Set's mercies!" Ethram-Fal stared in amazed horror as the barbarian took another dragging step toward him.

"Die, dog! Die!" screamed the sorcerer, clenching his fist and squeezing tight. There was a strange sound somewhere in the hallway behind him, but he had confined his attention to the barbarian. This man was d.a.m.ned hard to kill.

Conan felt as if he were walking across the bottom of an ocean.

Pressure from all sides threatened to crush his body like a grape in a wine press. Although his sword weighed more than a mountain and the veins in his neck stood out like writhing serpents, all his besieged senses remained set upon his enemy. He lamented the distance that still lay between them while never wavering from his grim purpose. As he shuffled forward another step, his vision began to dim.

"Now!" shouted the Stygian sorcerer. "Now I have you!"

At that moment the Emerald Lotus burst through the doorway like the flood from a broken dam. It bore Ethram-Fal aloft before it, a mere chip upon its tide. The bristling plant-thing drove its bulk through the narrow gap of the doorway and thrust its thorned and flowering branches into the chamber.

The sorcerer found himself helpless on the forefront of a surging juggernaut. His startled cry became a full-throated scream as thorns like black daggers pierced his struggling body.

Ethram-Fal's sorcerous grip fell away from Conan. The barbarian staggered, looked up at the oncoming colossus, and blindly turned to run.

Heng Shih, Neesa, and Zelandra shook free of the paralysis of horror that had held them motionless. The Khitan seized the dazed Zelandra and spun her toward the closest doorway. Neesa followed, turning her back on the monstrosity that poured into the temple as she ran to grasp her mistress's arm. Heng Shih rushed to Conan's aid as the battered barbarian stumbled past him. The great scimitar lashed out at the first, questing branch of the blood-hungry Emerald Lotus, lopping off a section the length of a man and sending it spiraling away. The huge bulk of the vampiric fungus slowed not at all. It bore down on the Khitan with Ethram-Fal, howling like a dying dog, still fastened to its swelling bosom. Spiked limbs festooned with vivid green flowers clawed their way over the altar that stood between the black sphinx's stone paws.

Conan hesitated in the portal's arch, and saw the women fleeing toward safety down the hallway ahead. Then, turning back, he beheld Heng Shih sprinting straight at him with a towering ma.s.s of lotus looming up behind.

"Hurry!" roared the Cimmerian, hefting Ath's broadsword with an arm that still ached from the cruel grip of Ethram-Fal's spell. The Khitan shot past him through the arch and Conan followed. The Emerald Lotus. .h.i.t the wall around the opening with the sound of a forest splintered by a lightning bolt. Tentacle-like branches whipped through the portal, seeking warm flesh and blood.

Conan and Heng Shih ran down the darkened hallway, chasing the shadows of Zelandra and Neesa, who were headed toward a vague and distant light. Behind them the lotus screwed itself through the doorway and pushed into the hall beyond. Its blood-gorged body almost filled the pa.s.sage. A thousand thorns and branch-tips sought purchase on the stone walls, floor, and ceiling, pulling the abomination along with frightening speed. Ethram-Fal, driven back into the body of the lotus by its impact against the wall, writhed in his th.o.r.n.y prison and screamed prayers to Set.

The four invaders rounded a corner and fled down the length of a long, straight hall. Ahead loomed a pale arch. Neesa had time to sense a freshening of the air before she ran right out of the Palace of Cetriss. Suddenly there was a dark sky above her and a set of steps beneath her madly running feet. She leapt forward to keep her balance, landing with a clap of heels in the natural courtyard, where two huddled guardsmen rushed to get to their feet.

The blood thundered in Conan's temples and he felt his much-abused body falter. The climb into the palace followed by the pursuit and battle with the guards would have exhausted any ordinary man. Following those trials with Ethram-Fal's agonizing Hand of Yimsha had tested even his iron endurance to its utmost limits. His heavily muscled legs trembled with weariness and breathing filled his breast with flame. Ahead, he saw the running form of Heng Shih drawing away down a hallway that had gone vague and blurred. The floor seemed to pitch and roll beneath him like the deck of a ship in a storm. His balance failed, and his shoulder rebounded painfully from a wall, sending him staggering wildly forward. Behind the barbarian, both the raging rasp of the "lotus and the now-feeble cries of its master drew nearer.

Conan shot through the portal and out of the Palace of Cetriss in a horizontal fall. When he hit the steps, he kicked forward with both feet, sending himself across the courtyard in a headlong dive. As his body struck the polished stone of the clearing's floor with punishing impact, he skidded forward and lay still. The Emerald Lotus exploded through the portal into the outside world. Conan heard m.u.f.fled shouts and cries. There was a momentary clash of steel against steel; then a woman's voice rose above all.

"Cease, you idiots! The demon has devoured your master!"

Whipping back his sweat-soaked hair, Conan shot a glance over a shoulder and saw the writhing ma.s.s of the Emerald Lotus come slithering down the palace steps. The exhausted Cimmerian dragged himself forward, his knees sliding over the smooth stone.

Through the flowering tendrils that imprisoned him, Ethram-Fal watched the crawling form of the barbarian. As the Stygian tried to call a last curse down upon his enemy, a great, green blossom bloomed from the sorcerer's open mouth, cutting off sound and breath forever. Rowers burst from his corpse.

Conan lunged forward and fell heavily on his chest, driving both hands into the fluffy, gray ashes of the firepit. He groped desperately as the lotus rose above him in a, tidal wave of deadly thorns, verdant blossoms, and lashing branches. The first limbs fell across his outstretched legs. The Cimmerian seized something from the firepit that seared into his palm. He rolled over and, with a savage howl of rage, thrust the red-hot ember into the body of the Emerald Lotus.

The effect was immediate and overwhelming. Scarlet curls of flame erupted around the outhrust ember. It was as though he had torched a dead and dried evergreen. The Emerald Lotus recoiled in a convulsive heave, drawing away from the barbarian and pulling back onto the palace stairs. But a scarlet badge of fire clung to its branches and grew there, coursing over and through its misshapen form. It burned with a sharp, ear-piercing hiss. In a moment its interior was alive with flame and the silhouettes of its victims' bodies were etched in deepest black against the flaring red-orange light. Then the lotus withdrew into the palace like a snake fleeing down its hole. The glow of its burning dwindled down the dark hallway.

Conan the Cimmerian lay on his back, supporting himself on one elbow, and watched the death throes of the Emerald Lotus. From within the Palace of Cetriss came a relentless crashing and rasping as the demonic thing thrashed out its unnatural life within the confines of its creator's lair. Each of the windows shone briefly with fiery light as the lotus rampaged through the palace seeking succor.

In time it was still.

The sandstorm had pa.s.sed, leaving behind a cloud-swept night sky full of clean, rushing wind. Neesa knelt at Conan's side. The barbarian struggled to rise, and Neesa laid a gentle hand on his shoulder. Heng Shih limped close, using his scimitar like a cane. His breathing was audible as his heavy hand joined Neesa's on Conan's brawny shoulder.

"Lie still," she whispered. "You must rest."

"No," growled the Cimmerian. "I want to stand." Conan stood up, his feet spread wide apart. The night wind cooled his burnt hand and pulled his black mane away from his bloodstained face. He looked across the courtyard at the two Stygian guardsmen, who stood in tense silence, swords clutched in rigid hands. He scowled and, wordlessly, they came forward and laid their weapons at his feet.

Exeunt ------.

Tossing back half the remaining flagon of watered wine, Conan wrapped his cloak around himself, leaned against the gorge's wall and immediately dozed off. After a brief conversation in sign language with Zelandra, Heng Shih followed the barbarian's example. Neesa and her mistress spoke in hushed tones for some time. They cast suspicious glances at the two surviving mercenary soldiers of Ethram-Fal, who sat in dispirited silence. With their employer and comrades dead, the pair apparently saw scant reason to quarrel with the invaders. Sleepless, they sat against the canyon's far wall, awaiting the morning and their fate.

In time Neesa fell into an exhausted slumber, leaning against the shoulder of Lady Zelandra, who showed no apparent signs of weariness.

The lady stared straight ahead,

and though her gaze made the Stygian captives cringe and look away, it was not directed at them. She looked ahead to her future and bided her time until the morning. Thus, when the sun drove the stars from the sky, she was the first into the Palace of Cetriss.

The gentle sounds of her rousing woke Conan, who stretched hugely, shook Heng Shih awake, and followed her. He slowed just long enough to cast a baleful glance at the Stygian captives. Behind him, the sun rose with slow inevitability until its fierce golden rays fell into the canyon cul-de-sac.